Rawei at Westminster.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8776, 11 March 1897, Page 3

Rawei at Westminster.

The following relating to Rawei, the Maori evangelist, who is well-known in Timaru, will be found interesting:— Admission being free, there was a crowded, not to say packed, house at Westminster Town Hall on Monday, January 18th, to hear the Maori ary Rawei deliver a lecture, with lantern slide illustrations, on his brothers in New Zealand. I did not purposely arrive till late, feeling that, so far as I was concerned, a little of Rawei might not impossibly go a long way. Fortunately, however, I didn’t miss the culminating episode of the evening. This occurred at the close of the lecture, when Rawei, who, despite his frizzed hair and blanket, looks and talks very much l.ke the ordinary semi-educated, and demi-semi-cultured peripatetic evangelist, made an appeal for funds to carry on his work. “ He had thought,” he said, “ that when he and his dear wife came to England they would find no difficulty in raising what funds they required. But here the speaker paused significantly, as though uncertain whether he should embark on a long story, and apparently he decided it would be wiser not—“ there is not time to go into all that now. What I want you to do now is to help me and my dear wife to aid our brothers and sisters in New Zealand,” and so on. The appeal was not at all badly worded. When

Eawei concluded, a stout gentlemen, swelling visibly with self-importance and satisfaction, mounted the platform, and addressing the Maori as “My dear sir,” informed him that two young ladies had been so much “ enthused ” by his good works as to be anxious to present him—purses. And these purses (continued the orator impressively) contained twenty - seven pounds—twenty-seven pounds lit (Very mild applause.) Now, what did the meeting mean to give ? Was it too great a thing to ask this thronged audience to do as much for the poor Maoris as the two young ladies had done ?—(Ominous silence). He appealed to them confidently to make the sum up to £SO, and send Rawei and his wife back to New Zealand with a substantial sum whereon to commence their mission. A collection was made in soup plates and £l4 further landed.—( Star's London correspondent, January 23rd.)